Seattle native Shawn Taylor of prasseindesignstudio is sharing her
process of making a wooden wrist cuff with us in conjunction with
our themes of woodworking and jewelry making.
As a designer, Shawn works with architects designing spaces, and she
applies her knowledge of certified wood and recycled materials in a
way that makes her designs both safe for habitation and easy on the
environment. Shawn is very passionate about sustainability and has
partnered with ecohaus, a sustainable urban building supply company
based in the Northwest.
While ecohaus attempts to reuse all of their materials in one way or
another, the shipping crates that carry their bulk materials often
break in the warehouse and then have to be chipped up to be
effectively reused in other building materials. Through her
relationship with this building supplier, Shawn has inserted herself
into that ecosystem to prevent some of the more exotic woods from
being destroyed by upcycling scraps into stunning yet minimal wooden
accessories.
Shawn was kind enough to take me to the ecohaus branch in south
Seattle, where we met Elliott Kopet, her friend and knowledgeable
sales associate who led us through the warehouse, sharing various
places for Shawn to scavenge for reusable scraps of wood. Shawn’s
passion for wood was instantly revealed by her ability to accurately
identify a variety of different woods all with varying degrees of
weather damage. After gleaning what she could from the scrap pile,
we continued to Shawn’s home wood shop in north Seattle where she
transformed a piece of scrap lumber into a magnificent wrist cuff.
The piece, Nature’s Barcode no. 1, highlights the sustainably farmed
certification stamp that was burned into the wood itself, sharing
the story of its origins. As stated in her shop announcements, 25%
of Shawn’s sales from the Natures Barcode series will be donated to
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
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